Staging the Future: Artificial Intelligence and Conflict

8 November 2017 | London

Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a transformative role in the twenty-first century human experience – including conflict. What role exactly remains to be seen, yet we have already had a glimpse from social-media bots to Wall Street trading. But are we courting the worst kind of failure of all – a failure of imagination?

RUSI, the Atlantic Council and Central Saint Martins present an immersive event in which creatives, AI experts and military and policymakers will engage in open conversation about the challenges, opportunities, and realities of AI over the next fifty years, and ask what its use will mean for defence and security.

Taking a multidisciplinary, creative approach ensures that the essential human factors in future conflict are not lost, and new, different voices participate in the debate. Traditional approaches to understanding an issue as complex as AI and war can obfuscate critical elements necessary to reducing risk and harm, while preparing society for a step-change in cognitive and operational capabilities.

Creative Cues

A Pre-Game Discussion by Jason Hansa – winner of the Art of the Future Project AI on Stage: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Conflict playwriting challenge.

Participants

The evening is moderated by Dr Ali Hossaini, artist and Visiting Research Fellow, King’s College London.

Professor Nick Yeung, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Oxford

Dr Pippa Malmgren, co-founder of H Robotics

Grady Booch, IBM Fellow and chief scientist, Watson

Jason Hansa, winner of the Atlantic Council Art of the Future contest on AI

Johannes Grenzfurthner, artistic director, monochrom

General Andrew Sharpe, Director, British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research

Arohi Jain, Project Leader, The Future Society, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Oliver Lewis, Improbable

Keith Dear, Wing Commander, RAF and Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford

August Cole, writer and director, Atlantic Council Art of the Future Project